I am a web designer, and i have had a paypal account for about a year and half now. Other than taking like $3 a transaction, i have had no problems But then a few days ago, a client decided to rip me off. I finished a whole design for him and sent it but he asked paypal to refund his money. Sadly paypal is refunding his money and wont consider looking at the proof of the design. Its pissing me off that they can just steal my money like that just because the buyer said so. any advice on what to do?
That's a good idea. However, since you already delivered the graphics to him, it's an intangible good so that isn't even covered by Paypal's protection policy.
yea i think i will do that, send him a cd with the template. but what pisses me off is the fact that paypal can screw sellers/designers over that easily and that the client is allowed to steal money from my account that easily. I would switch over to google checkout and other means but they are still not as popular.
First of all, PayPal is not "stealing" from your account. If you wanted to conduct such a business online and accept PayPal, you would know that you have little protection for intangible goods. As Hamik112 stated, depending on the situation, it would be a good idea to have a hard-copy of the finished product for you client that you could deliver by mail which you should also state in an agreement to them.
first-u sh0uld get his address confirmed before give him any thing sec-in big transactions simply send him the cd,so u have proof,paypal is very good for shipped items but not for digitals
Always get the client to sign an agreement before work is completed and delivered. Some people will try to get over if they have an opportunity to. A contract greatly reduces this. Good luck on getting your funds back.
This is interesting because I had the opposite happen to me. I purchased the 'multi-server' plugin from clipshare, which they never delivered, and paypal refused to give me my money back even when I could provide clear evidence of Clipshare's ticket system of them not having installed the plugin!
I never release a site deemed done until I have been paid, I however understand the OP argument, pay pal basically didn't listen to his side of the story, this is why I never release my work until I am paid in full, too many dishonest people out there.
Like I said before, although Paypal supports intangible products and services, there is no protection for such as there is no way you can get an independent 3rd party to prove the delivery happened. Paypal was started to support online auctions and that pretty much has not really change much. Paypal did not steal your money, it is your customer who did that. In fact it would be in Paypal's best interest not to refund because when they refund, they will lose their fees too. It is the vendors responsibility to perfect due diligence on their customers. Why are you blaming Paypal and not your customer or yourself for failing to take the necessary precaution here ? Paypal offers amongst the lowest fees in the industry and in order to do that, they cut down on most of the necessary pre-checks to prevent fraud.
Are you sure you just don't have an unresolved issue and they're simply just "holding" the money until that's resolved? Since the product is intangible, Paypal will probably side with you since your customer can't prove you didn't send them the product. Some people are saying that Paypal will side with the customer with intangible products but it's actually the other way around.
How are you not sure that it's a chargeback - Also, when selling a template ensure you watermark it before providing full product. That way they'd be stuck with your name, When payment is sent in full you should be OK. Make sure they are verified, Because PayPal has a 60% increased chance of a reversal if they aren't verified so don't be that type of victim. So if they are verified, PayPal wouldn't "just" refund them, they would take it legally and put it in the screen of the team which is actually giving you a chance to speak, not scream.
These suggestions are really good, getting the buyers information including name , physical address etc is something you should always do. Then mail it out to him on a disc with a USPS tracking number so that you can put in your paypal delivery information a physical tracking number. That should stop them from ripping you off so easily in the future. All PayPal wants to see is a tracking number that can verify delivery. Make sure that you also have a refund policy in place clearly stating what is and is not acceptable reasons for refund. Do this both on your confirmation email to the buyer as well as on your website if you have a site.
I would check and see if it is a chargeback versus a PayPal resolution that's the cause of the refund. PayPal usually sides with sellers when it comes to digital product delivery, unless the buyer has filed a credit card chargeback. All of the other advice above is solid. If you don't have an agreement already in place, I would suggest you develop one outlining all of the terms of the transaction.
The disc is absolutely no proof, as it can very well be a blank CD. Unfortunately this happened to me with a Brazilian guy who purchased a translation, and then said he never received it. Paypal refunded the money. They I brought them the proofs (especially his translated web site that he forgot to hide from public!) and I got my money back. You have to think about every single piece of proof, email, web site, file, screenshot and send it to Paypal. They will refund you if you are convincing.
Not in my cases, I've been scammed a view time buying domain names and paypal told me there was nothing I could do cause it was a virtual item. But many people have paid me and then asked paypal for a refund and have gotten it. Even with proof that they agreed to a TOS and proof that they broke it (Alot of people upload phishing sites) Thats not even enough to swindle them.
You should give away the work you did for him here on DP for free. Hopefully others will use it and make it worthless to him. Chris